


the blind channel at desolation sound

by LocketShoru



Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Age of Myth, Demigods, Fluff, M/M, Minor Angst, Minor Depiction of Drowning, Minos’ POV, Oneshot, Siren!Albafica
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23269690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/LocketShoru
Summary: On the high Mediterranean seas one night, Minos attempts to use his demigod powers to quell the storm that’s putting the lives of his crew in danger. It works... sort of. And then he’s rescued by a stranger.
Relationships: Griffon Minos/Pisces Albafica
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	the blind channel at desolation sound

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly. Please listen to this song as your soundtrack. Partially because it was my soundtrack, partially because the song is awesome.  
> Now! Y’all know the scene in Percy Jackson Battle of the Labyrinth when he goes to Calypso’s? I was on Google Maps at work super bored and saw a place called Refuge Cove up the coastline from me and it turns out it’s in a place called Desolation Sound, which is sick, and right beside it is a place called the Blind Channel. Which, taken all together, is hella sick. So I had to put the names into a fic somewhere. Then I thought up this! So yeah!  
> Anyway, have some age of myth MiAlba. Bonus to those of you who figure out the foreshadowing. :p

They weren’t going to make it. Zeus _alive_ , they weren’t going to make it. The frigate rolled over every wave harder than the last, his navigator’s hands desperately trying to spin the wheel in a way that they wouldn’t capsize. They were sailing against the current, almost dangerously zero-degrees, and there simply wasn’t a way around it.

It was his job to make it stop. He climbed over the netting of the foremast, snatching ahold of a loose rope and swinging over onto the main mast. If he could get to the lookout nest… The rope slipped under his palms, wet and slimy and slippery. There was no way he was getting up there. He jammed his legs into the netting, holding tight by his thighs against the cord. Lightning rattled against the sea somewhere in the distance. Worse, the winds kept trying to push them off-course, and all that would do was kill them. 

“Argiris! Get everyone below deck!” he screamed, and bless the storm they heard him, bless his first mate that everyone followed them below as fast as they could. The only one left above-deck was himself and Tanose, who was going to hold onto the ship’s wheel until she died, probably. Minos climbed up the netting, locking his elbows around where his hands slipped off. Another wave rocked the frigate, which shuddered under its might.

He climbed up into the crow’s nest, hands finding purchase against the slimy wood of the mast and pulling himself upright. Now was the time. If he didn’t, they were all going to die. He squared his shoulders and put his weight squarely between his feet, and raised his hands to the sky.

“Father! Hear me now and hark to me here!” he screamed. He could feel the lightning in his blood begin to boil and bubble over. The winds didn’t slow, if anything they blazed past him ever faster. The lightning was going to rip apart his wrists in a moment. Words spilled out of his mouth, an ancient chant he knew the syllables of but not the meaning, to calm the storms and his father’s fury. The lightning in his blood wasn’t going away, and it ricocheted down his thighs and into his feet. His ears were tingling, too. He put his hands together, palms open, and let it loose. 

He felt his feet leave the ground, and yet, he wasn’t flying. Splinters of wood and blackened ash seemed to rain around him, and for a moment, all was silent. He could see the ship, distantly and foggily, main mast destroyed but otherwise alive. The waters seemed peaceful, an unbroken span of blue.

He hit the water, and he didn’t even feel his spine breaking.

The quiet hum of the waves lapping against the shore.

“And what, pray tell, are you…?”

The shuffling of sand across sand.

“My, my… … … bad, that’s rather …”

Something wet and warm against his mouth, pushing wind into his numb chest.

“Again…”

The faintest trace of light just past his eyelids. They wouldn’t open.

The warm feeling returned, wind sweeping gently through his lungs, reminding him what it was like to breathe. 

The waves, soft and salty, lapping at his skin somewhere around his legs.

“Father…?” he croaked, just before utter agony pulsed into his every muscle. He forced his eyes to open, his scream already dying from the pain before it began.

All he could see was something blue, and soft, clouding his vision. He thought it might be hair, but his was white, not blue. Something warm pushed more wind into him, forcing it down his through and pulling it back.

The something withdrew, into vague clarity, still a little foggy around the edges. Blue hair, dark eyes, a deep tan and fish-fins like a crown, and not that amused.

“Welcome to Refuge Cove, brave sailor,” said the something with the blue hair, cascading down their back and shoulders. “Let us see if you make it through the night.”

Without them to push wind into his aching chest, he found himself a little light-headed, and he faded back into the agony’s embrace.

When he next recalled awakening, he found himself in a woven hammock in what seemed to be a small, one-room house. Atop of him was a goat-hair blanket, and above that, a netting woven from wide, pliant leaves. The hair on his exposed forearm was completely singed, but he didn’t feel too burned.

He moved to sit up, slowly, one hand on the wall beside him for stability. He was wearing a shirt that he definitely hadn’t been on the ship, nor did he recognize what it was made from. Somehow, even his bones seemed to have mostly knit themselves back together while he’d been out. On his other side, away from the wall, was a small table carved from wood, and atop of that, some bread and fruit he didn’t recognize, as well as a cut of deboned white fish. He shifted over in the hammock and took the plate, attempting to eat some of it. His jaw mostly didn’t want to chew, but he forced down the fish, which was soft and easy to rip up with his hands. The bread and fruit, not so much.

“Ah. You’re awake,” said a voice from the door. He looked up, blinking. It was the someone from before, who he thought might have resuscitated him earlier. They had long blue hair and scales dotting their face, with long fish-fins reminiscent of a siren, wearing a white toga that showed most of their freckled chest. He opened his mouth, unsure of whether or not to make an excuse. The air tasted strange against his tongue, and he was suddenly quite certain of what he was looking at: this was another demigod, much like himself, and almost as powerful.

Poseidon, probably, judging by the scales and fishy parts, and if he wasn’t mistaken, the gills on their ribs. They stepped forward, striding into the room, scanning him over. “I saw your ship go down,” they said, calmly, like it was no more than commenting on the growth of the current harvest. “You tried to save them all.”

“They…” His throat was incapable of making more sound than that, but his gut inched into something like pain again. If he’d accidentally killed them all… 

“They sailed off. I did not see any other corpses in the waters, if that helps.” They stopped a couple of feet away from his hammock, one fin relaxed down, the other perked right up. Their face, however, was still neutral.

He nodded, slowly, once he’d understood what they’d said. He was the only casualty. Better than nothing. At least his legacy would probably last, though his mother would probably be upset over the whole deal. He looked up again, eyeing them. He wanted to ask who they were, but it was taking enough strength as it was just to stay somewhat upright. 

They eyed him right back, fins rising to what seemed to be a neutral state. “You want to know who I am.”

He nodded, one hand still hanging onto the wall. They stepped closer, hesitating for a moment before pushing him back down onto the hammock. They were a beautiful half-fish stranger, sure, but he wasn’t entirely sure if he had the strength for what they seemed to be thinking. Then they pushed the blanket and the netting back up to his chin.

“I will tell you, when I think you would be able to stay awake for it. Sleep, sailor. There isn’t anything else you can do, right now.” They stepped away, and he blinked, unsure, and sleep washed over him with a sweet wave of numbness.

He remembered, vaguely, waking up just enough to sit up a little as the stranger fed him some soup. It was warm and savoury and tasted of more spices than he’d ever had in his life. Whenever he woke up just enough to dream, he could hear the storm all over again, the screaming, the waves slamming at the side of the ship. He would wake up, and the pain would ebb in and out of his body, and he’d fall back into unconsciousness.

He blinked awake. He was still under the blanket and the leaf-netting, but the food on the nightstand had been changed to a few watermelon slices and what looked like a pastry. He reached over for the watermelon, eating it up as quickly as possible. His jaw seemed more in the idea of actually chewing, and the water in it was doing wonders for his raw throat.

He ate the pastry next, finding it sweet and surprisingly filled with jam. By the time he was done, his hands had slowly stopped shaking, and he felt better. The next step was getting up, and finding out where the hell he was. He was pretty sure the Underworld didn’t look like this.

He pushed the blanket and the netting back, palm firmly on the table for his balance. Then he forced his legs to swing over the side of the hammock, and set about standing up. He managed it, and dizziness swept through him. His legs shook, but he stayed standing until the nausea had passed, and slowly made his way to the door and then outside. At least he was still wearing pants, even if he was barefoot.

It was a still-bright summer’s evening outside, the sun inching towards the horizon. His first thought of the landscape was that he was in a giant egg, its shell cracked and split and settled together at the bottom, turned into solid stone mountains, protecting him from whatever lay beyond them. The valley around him was so green, splattered with a riot of colours he had never seen elsewhere.

He could have crossed from one side of the valley to the other at its longest point in probably three hours. It was beautiful, but to his windy, wayward soul, he could see this a prison in a matter of days.

“You should not wander, sailor,” called the voice he now recognized. Turning, he spotted the other demigod as they approached, blue hair waving in the breeze. “If you take a wrong step and fall off a cliff, I cannot save you a second time.”

“Could I have your name, child of Poseidon?” he asked. It was proper to refer to demigods as children of their parents, if their names were unknown.

To his surprise, the stranger only laughed. “I am no child of Poseidon, but nice guess. My mother is the god of vengeful death, and as they have not given me word, I won’t bother killing you after I went to all the trouble of saving you. Are you a human, by chance?”

He paused. He didn’t know who the god of vengeful death might be, but if the other said they weren’t going to kill him, then he saw no reason why not to believe them. “Sort of,” he ventured, stepping forward a little, holding out his hand to shake. “My name is Minos. Son of Zeus.”

The stranger took it, and shook, and their hand was rough and calloused and scaled, and they had the barest trace of a smile on their lips. “Albafica. Son of Icthyes. I’m glad to see you finally awake, Minos. Perhaps now I might find answers to some of the questions I have.”

The two ate dinner together, after Albafica had ordered Minos to sit down and stay there. He’d wanted to help cook whatever he’d decided on, but Albafica had been insistent that he should rest, lest he pass out halfway through dinner and force him to carry him back to bed. But he had another use, which was that he was educated; and Albafica had the questions of a man who had never seen the outside world once in his life.

He wanted to know everything, it seemed. The stars (which ones, what they did, what stories they told), what Minos had been doing on the boat (sailing the Atlantic with his crew), how the boat worked (wind, mostly, and a great deal of mathematics), and what the outside world was like. He was both intriguing and stoic at the same time, expressing nothing with his body language but entirely with his fins. 

Minos himself had been too busy explaining to really ask any questions of his own. He couldn’t help it, much. He was expected to know more than his subjects, with the whole royalty thing, and Albafica knew practically nothing of anything. 

“Before you ask anything else, I do want to know. How did you end up here?” Minos stretched out his back as best he could, feeling the soothing crack and release of his spine. “I mean, most children generally can’t wander around and take care of themselves, and yet you seem alone in this place.”

“This is an island, and just past the mountains is the coastline,” Albafica answered, in the middle of washing their dinner plates. Minos had, of course, been banned from helping. Regardless of other things, he did actually know how to wash dishes. “I will never leave this island, no. My mother was here, a long time ago. They made the island, out of their sorrow. They said the time wasn’t right for me to be anywhere else, and so, this won’t exist for anywhere else. I never met my father either, if that’s what you’re hoping for. I only ever met his bones, when my mother carried his shroud in from the shore and buried him here. That was the last time I saw them.”

Honestly, he hadn’t expected an answer at all, let alone one as thorough as that. But it also meant he too, probably wouldn’t leave. And Crete needed him there. Especially after the last incident with Rhadamanthys and Sarpedon. “Is there a chance either of us are going to leave here?” he asked.

“If I see your crew on the horizon, I will call them here, and set you out to them. I myself, not until my mother takes me out of here.” Albafica’s voice was curt and matter-of-fact - he had evidently not ever thought about leaving on his own. 

“You could come with me,” Minos offered, slowly, hesitating. “We could go together, and I could teach you the world.”

Albafica smiled, raw and gentle and flashing all of his very sharp teeth. He set down the last of the dishes, rising from his seat. Minos rose with him, figuring it probably was time to head to bed. At the very least, he was certainly exhausted, and they’d been talking for hours. “I don’t think I will. But it’s kind of you to offer.” 

Days passed without much fanfare at all, and he recovered, slow and steady. The island quickly became familiar, and he noted that there really wasn’t much here other than Albafica, some livestock, and a frankly alarming amount of greenery. He wasn’t one to really travel inland, preferring to stay in the waters where he could sail off to somewhere new. Crete was his home, too, and he understood being on an island. But unlike Albafica, for him that meant seafaring and ruling all that he could command that would listen to it. Under his hand, the Mediterrenean was certainly becoming a stabilized area. 

Once he had recovered enough that he was no longer banned from helping, he followed the other around to help him with his various chores: gardening, tending to the flock of goats he kept, making and mending clothes, gathering firewood and food. After about his fourth day that he recalled, he sighed and set about fixing up the small house that they were sharing for the time being.

One good thing about being a demigod: extra strength that he’d trained and harnessed. The good thing about being royalty, too: he knew exactly how things were supposed to be put together, being the one who directed the construction. With Albafica providing an extra set of hands, they rebuilt the house in its entirety, until it was larger, less likely to fall over, and reinforced for any storms that might pass by.

Albafica wasn’t worried about storms. Very little seemed to actually ruffle him, and he spoke of all the things he’d never seen with the same mild curiosity and acceptance. When Minos got up in the morning, Albafica had usually already set out breakfast for him, and could often be found either already at the day’s work, or out on one of the cliffs, staring out at sea.

He was beautiful, even with scales and fins and shark-teeth. Minos was pretty sure he was at least a little in love with his grace, his usual stoicism, and the way he laughed when Minos told him jokes that at home were considered incredibly cliche.

They would take walks together around the mountains, slipping through caves and stone walkways like battlements of a fortress. Eventually, somewhere around day eight, he found the courage within himself to slip his hand into Albafica’s, allowing him to lead the way without ever worrying about falling behind.

They were sitting together on a cliff like a walkway, up on what he was pretty sure was the western side of the mountains. Below them was the cove where he’d washed up, where Albafica had rescued and resuscitated him. Even now, the vague memory of his lips brought a warmth to his cheeks. It had been entirely necessary and had nothing to do with him, but it was still romantic in his mind.

He wondered, a little, how angry Albafica’s godly mother might be if, when they were found, he took him off the island. Gods could be challenged, and sometimes they relented. Gods could always, always be challenged. And Albafica deserved better than a prison. Crete would be good enough for him, he was sure: the open seas, the island home, but he’d never be a prisoner again.

Minos leaned over, and rested his temple on Albafica’s shoulder. He glanced over. “Are you tired? Should we head back?” he asked.

“No, we’re good,” Minos replied, almost lazily. “You’re just relaxing to be around. This is the most peaceful I’ve ever felt.”

Albafica smiled, flicking his fins in a way he’d come to understand as flattered. “I’m glad you like it,” he answered softly. Minos leaned in a little more, and slipped his arms around his ribs, careful to ensure he wasn’t putting any weight over his gills. Albafica held still, for a moment, and all but put his entire weight into Minos’ chest.

They held still like that, for a few moments, or maybe a few hours. He wasn’t really watching the stars, focused more on memorizing exactly how this felt, so he might always remember this moment. The wind swept them by lazily, wandering across the ocean in search of something to play with. Albafica’s breath rose and fell in sync with his own, and he didn’t feel quite so trapped.

The wind went still for a moment, and Albafica sat up straighter, still leaned into him but more alert, fins stick-straight in the air. Minos paused, looking at him uncertainly, before following his gaze out to sea.

On just this side of the horizon, not really that far in the moonlight, was a ship. It sailed closer until it could be identified, a trireme with the banner of Crete upon its sails. 

“That’s mine,” he said, softly. “That would be my crew.” 

Albafica, beside him, went still. His face didn’t change, but his fins fell back. Not quite dislike, but certainly disapproval. He, too, must have been hoping Minos might stay. It would break his heart to leave. It would break his mind to stay, and he wasn’t willing to do either one.

He pulled him a little closer, until Albafica was all but sitting in his lap. He lifted a hand and caught his chin, turning him until they were looking eye-to-eye. “Come with me,” he said, all too aware his voice was that of a man who was drowning. Albafica had already saved him from that fate, and again, he could almost feel the waters lapping at his legs. “Come with me and let me set you free of this place. I can show you all the known world, and we wouldn’t have to be apart.”

Albafica’s fins flicked into a position he didn’t recognize, and he sighed, closing his eyes. “I cannot. You know I cannot, as I know you cannot stay. But when I am permitted to leave, I will find you. Make sure you’re still out there, okay? And if you ever end up drowning yourself again, my cove is open. For you, it’ll always be open.”

“Then I’ll come back.” He didn’t know what he was going to say until he said it. “One day, when I don’t need saving. I’ll come back.”

Albafica smiled, fins outstretched with joy. “Then let’s call your ship, and set your sails to the winds.”

Albafica could call the currents to him and drag the ship toward his island just by telling it to, and there wasn’t anything the crew would be able to do. Minos figured they would be panicking over this, and sent a bolt of lightning to the sky. They all knew what he was, they’d know it was him. The two gathered his things and Albafica ensured he had some clean clothes as well, just to make sure.

At the edge of the water, in the cove where they’d begun, Albafica held one more object out to him. “For you,” he said, softly. In his hands was a potted rosebush, glittered more colours than he’d ever seen in a single flowerbush before. “Plant it in Crete for me, Minos. If you let it grow and weave the thorns into thread, they’ll help you find your way home. That way you’ll know that I’ll always be here waiting.”

His hands closed around the pot, gripping it tight. “Thank you,” he answered, dipping his head. “I don’t have anything material to give to you, but there is one thing I can give.” Albafica blinked, and Mnos leaned in, kissing him softly. This wasn’t resuscitation, no, this was the love he’d found on this island, pressed into a farewell.

Albafica all but melted into the kiss, stepping closer. They didn’t have long, but he kissed him anyway, breaking away when he ran out of breath. “I’ll be back,” he promised. “I’ll find my way back to you.”

His love’s smile was soft, and broken, and more full of hope than he could ever have translated. He looked about to cry. “See that you are, and I will be here,” he answered, and he stepped into the boat they’d woven together from branches, and the current carried him out to sea, where he would always love. Where he knew he might yet still find his own wayward soul, as he left a part of his heart behind.


End file.
